


the graffiti they write on your grave

by roachpatrol



Category: Motorcity
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, M/M, Time Travel, if you want a fic where the college students actually GO to college, spoilers: none of this fic actually involves anyone going to class, this is not that
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-07
Updated: 2018-08-05
Packaged: 2019-05-03 17:14:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 16,979
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14573715
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/roachpatrol/pseuds/roachpatrol
Summary: In the bright fluorescent light of the coffee shop, Chuck’s eyes don’t really show from behind his overgrown bangs. He’s about Mike’s age, and just kind of looks like a regular homeless kid, though not one dressed for Detroit in November. His hair’s shaggy and kind of greasy, and he’s got really rough-looking hands, all scabby and chapped-looking under a layer of dark grime. The seams on his faded blue shirt look uneven, hand-stitched or at least hand-repaired, and Mike’s pretty sure the soles of his shoes are cut from tires. There are long, thin pale scars that stretch along his arms, under his sleeves, up his throat and over his face to his eyes, straight and stark as wires, and almost invisible until they catch the light just right. Scar art or cyborg tech, Mike couldn’t guess.The future is looking like it’s a bit more Terminator than Jetsons, unfortunately.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> __  
> _I'll tell you all how the story ends_  
>  _Where the good guys die and the bad guys win_  
>  _Who cares?_  
>  _This ain't about all the friends you made_  
>  _But the graffiti they write on your grave..._  
>  —"Save Yourself, I’ll Hold Them Back", MCR

 

Mike’s out on a pizza run when someone opens his door.

This is weird for a couple reasons: the first is that the car door should be locked from the inside. The other is that the guy helps himself right into Mike’s passenger seat, and buckles himself in, folding his long arms and legs up awkwardly to fit.

The _other_ reason is that his eyes are lit up blue from the inside. Not glinting cool-white from street lights or anything, but actually shining an electric blue from the rings of his irises, and one of his big pale hands is holding a rectangular pane of light like holograms are a thing now.

The traffic lights go green.

“ _Drive_ ,” the guy says, “ _now, please, FAST.”_ His voice is hoarse and kind of high-pitched for such a big guy, even a white dude. Mike has a glimpse of sweat, glittering red-green-blue-gold in the street lights, and a heaving chest. Thin, dirty fingers tap and swipe at the honest-to-fuck-definitely-a-hologram.

Mike drives. It’s three in the morning, speed limits are basically just polite suggestions at this point.

“So,” Mike says after a tense couple blocks.

“Yeah, sorry,” the stranger says, and drags a shaking hand over his face. “I’m from the future, hi.” Mike gets a peek at a long-jawed, craggy face behind a mess of wild pale hair, an expression that’s hovering somewhere between terrified and exhausted. A dark smudge on one cheekbone that could be from anything.

“...That explains the hologram thing,” Mike says, after a minute. The guy gives a rough bark of laughter and flicks his fingers, popping the screen like a soap bubble.

“Yeah! Ahahah, yeah. Okay, yes. Exactly. I sort of thought that-- y’know, would be a, a harder sell--”

“No, it’s cool, future, I got it,” Mike says, because, hey, why not. “Are things not going so great, dude? You don’t, uh, look like you’re here for a good time.”

“Yeah,” the guy says again, then, “No, I mean, right, no, yeah, I’m-- wow, I’m so bad at this, dang.”

“ _Dang?_ ” Mike asks, laughing a little despite himself.

“I don’t know! Yeah, dang! Whatever curse you guys use here-- _shoot_ \-- I’m Chuck, nice to meet you,” the time traveler says.

“I’m--” Mike starts, and--

“Mike Chilton,” the tall dude finishes, sending a bright thrill down Mike’s spine. The guy, Chuck, catches it, and gives another rough little laugh, letting his head loll back against the top of the headrest. “Yeah, I’ve heard of you, dude. Sorry.”

“You’re _sorry?_ ” Mike grins nervously. “What’s up, am I in trouble or something?”

Chuck hesitates for long enough that the buzz of excitement turns into a heavy, crawling dread.

“Buddy,” Mike presses.

“No, it’s-- it’s not you, you’re cool, okay?” the guy blurts out. “You’re a hero. But-- you need to get me to Julie Kane. Tonight. Now. As soon as possible.”

“Julie... Kane?” Mike frowns. “I only know a Julie Kapulsky-- does she get married later or--”

“Kapulsky. Yeah, that’s her, before-- uh, now. Until? That’s her. Can you get me there?”

“Well I mean it’s like three in the morning,” Mike points out. “You couldn’t have picked a better time, dude?”

“Oh, sorry, I jumped back two freakin’ _centuries_ , my bad for not inviting myself to, like, _brunch--”_

A lightning-bright flash of blue light wipes out Mike’s night vision for a second: he thinks at first that it’s from Chuck, but the guy’s screaming in terror, and one of his hands clamps over Mike’s on the wheel, pulling them into a blind, uncontrolled skid that sends Mike’s heart into his mouth and his foot slamming down on the brakes.

“ _Don’t slow down DON’T SLOW DOWN,”_ Chuck screams, and Mike blinks burnt spots out of his vision long enough to glimpse something huge and boxy charging down the road at them, one cyclopian blue eye starting to flare white.

“Holy shit,” Mike says, and wrestles his car off the shoulder of the road. His tires screech unpleasantly as he accelerates, but this time he knows to close his eyes when he hears the faint ozone sizzle, and the energy bolt-- laser bolt? Ray gun?-- only paints the inside of his eyelids bright red as it lances past them. Mike fishtails the car and elbows his passenger somewhere solid when the guy, still screaming, tries to grab for him again.

“Sit tight!” he shouts. “Don’t grab the fucking wheel, dude, you’ll crash us!”

“Okay! Okay okay, okay, I can-- I can-- what can I do--”

“You can tell me what that thing _is_!”

“Kane Co Ultra Enforcer,” Chuck says unsteadily, and shrieks again when the creature lets loose another blast.

“Well, it’s a lousy aim,” Mike says.

“Those are warning shots,” Chuck says. “It can’t, um, if it fries me it destroys the time machine, so--”

“Whoa, you’ve got one small enough to carry around?” Mike says, distracted. “I thought they had to be like, big-- boxes and stuff--”

“Now is not the time to discuss the scalar properties of temporal mechanics!”  Chuck screams, and then throws his arms over his head and screams again when another bolt sizzles past them, painting molten lines of bubbling asphalt across the road ahead of them. Mike swerves, rather than risking his tires bursting or anything, and spins his car to be facing back at the monster.

“They can’t corner very fast, can they,” he says, almost absently.

“What? No, Chilton-- holy crap, _no_ \--”

Too late. Mike’s accelerating, charging right for the huge thing. It’s at least the size of a house, all heavy metal plates and some dark, horribly fleshy cordage within. It opens a beaky aperture and _roars_ , snapping for the car, but Mike turns them just in time and, with a final burst of speed, they’re past the thing and sailing away down the road.

The creature roars again-- frustration? Is it _alive_? And there’s a horrible thundering, creaking noise as it starts to turn itself around. Mike watches, fascinated, in the rearview mirror, until Chuck screams again and Mike has to turn his attention back to the road.

He whips them into a residential neighborhood as soon as he can, blowing past stop signs and 30mph speed limits, whipping up trash and dead leaves and catching actual air over speed bumps. But it seems to work: there’s no thunderous giant robot steps chasing them, and after a tense ten or fifteen minutes, Mike starts to slow down, belatedly remembering that police are still a thing, and the last thing he needs after escaping future hell robots is a bunch of pigs getting mixed up in all this.

“Okay,” he says, finally, coasting them to a stop. “Buddy. I think maybe you need to tell me some things.”

“No, I don’t?” Chuck says nervously. “I mean like yeah okay some things but like you gotta keep in mind--”

“I don’t wanna blow up the future or anything, I’ve seen movies,” Mike cuts in, waving his hand. “But like, c’mon, what the hell’s going on, here? What _was_ that?”

“I told you, Kane Co Ultra Enforcer--”

“Yeah and what’s Kane Co, does Julie like, does she marry someone bad--”

“You, she marries you,” Chuck says, and Mike kind of trips over his tongue.

“What?” he says, instead of _So why isn’t it Chilton Co_ or _But I’m gay_ or _Isn’t that some kind of spoiler?_

“And she founds the Kane Company during the Last War and it lasts for centuries and I stole a time machine and trashed all their research and Kane-- Abraham Kane-- he’s not _happy_ about it and-- there’s like, there’s this _rift_ , okay, like imagine I tore a hole in, in, in mud, and it’s filling back in but he can still send all this crap after me, and if he gets the time machine back, it’s bad, okay, it’s game over, it’s real freakin’ bad, okay!”

“Okay,” Mike says, after a beat. He reaches out, carefully, and pats the guy’s shoulder. It’s trembling a little. He feels really bad for Chuck: he’s never met like, a refugee before, and that’s pretty clearly what Chuck is, someone from somewhere really bad, who’s all messed up from it. His eyes are still shining an eerie electric blue behind his bangs, and he smells like old sweat and moldy basement, damp and kind of nasty.  

“So we’re gonna like... talk her out of it?” Mike asks.

Chuck gives another of his sad little laughs. “Yeah,” he says. “I figure, y’know, if I ask nicely enough she’ll go ‘oh, never mind then!’ and like not be the most important person in the twenty-first century... I don’t know, Mike, I just grabbed the machine and booked it. Can you please start driving again?”

Mike nods, kind of shaken, and starts driving. He makes turns aimlessly, at random, until they pass a 24-hour coffee shop and he pulls them abruptly into the parking lot.

“C’mon,” he says. “I need to refuel. You probably need something, too.”

“This isn’t a good idea,” Chuck says, clenching his hands around his seatbelt. “We shouldn’t stop.”

“Well, tough,” Mike says. “I’m paying. Also not letting you alone in my car. C’mon.”

In the bright fluorescent light of the coffee shop, Chuck’s eyes don’t really show from behind his overgrown bangs. He’s about Mike’s age, and just kind of looks like a regular homeless kid, though not one dressed for Detroit in November. His hair’s shaggy and kind of greasy, and he’s got really rough-looking hands, all scabby and chapped-looking under a layer of dark grime. The seams on his faded blue shirt look uneven, hand-stitched or at least hand-repaired, and Mike’s pretty sure the soles of his shoes are cut from tires. There are long, thin pale scars that stretch along his arms, under his sleeves, up his throat and over his face to his eyes, straight and stark as wires, and almost invisible until they catch the light just right. Scar art or cyborg tech, Mike couldn’t guess.

The future is looking like it’s a bit more Terminator than Jetsons, unfortunately.

Mike orders a double-shot mocha espresso for himself, then, after Chuck looks puzzled by every word on the menu including ‘coffee’, a green tea with sugar for his new friend.

“Oh, I know _tea_ , phew,” Chuck says, taking the cup with relief. He takes a sip and makes a soft, startlingly pretty noise of pleasure, then takes a longer sip, eyes falling closed. Mike can’t help staring, can’t help thinking _oh, no_ : the guy isn’t handsome, like at all, he’s not a guy who’d be cast as a time traveler in a movie. Maybe a sidekick or something, a geek. But he’s _real,_ from his beaky nose to his pale freckles to the smudge of dark grease across his narrow throat, and that’s somehow way more compelling.

“You want snacks?” Mike asks. “Food?”

Chuck slurps his tea and goes, “Yeah, man-- I mean, if you can afford it, I’ll take whatever’s on offer. Do you, uh, do you have credit here?”

“I’m good,” Mike says, instead of getting into like... whatever that’s about.

“We gotta replace all the baked goods at four,” the coffee guy chimes in. “Like, literally I have to throw everything in the trash, then pour bleach on it. You wanna give me a dollar, I’ll sell you the whole case right now. Hell, gimme a nickel.”

“Jeez, thanks, that’s awesome of you,” Mike says, rummaging in his wallet for folding money. He gives the guy a nickel, into his hand, then dunks a twenty into the tip jar.

“Hey, thank _you!_ ” the guy says, grinning. “You want these in a bag?”

“Sure, yeah, and napkins,” Mike says. “You’re the best, dude.”

“Back atcha. Sit tight, I’ll bring it out. Your friend want a restroom key? Freshen up a bit?”

So Mike’s not the only guy here who thinks Chuck looks-- and kinda smells-- homeless. Well, whatever, it just means some people are really nice, is all. Mike takes the key with a grateful smile and then pushes Chuck firmly off towards the restroom.

“Wait, what’s going on?” Chuck protests, starting to dig his heels in when he sees the door. “Is-- am I getting-- you’re not locking me up, are you, I’m not _crazy,_ you saw the Enforcer too! Chilton--  _sir!_ ”

“It’s just Mike, dude, and that’s just a bathroom,” Mike says. “Not a holding cell, jeez, calm down--”

“I’m not going in there,” Chuck says tightly, “You’re not locking me in there!” He braces against the doorframe and-- wow, yeah, he’s not going _anywhere_ , actually, the guy has metal bones or something. He’s _strong,_ too strong to deal with while they’re juggling some really hot drinks, and Mike leaves off pushing really fast.

“It’s not a trap, I swear,” he says, trying to sound reassuring. “You’re just-- dude, you’re really dirty, alright, but if you don’t want to wash then we won’t, it’s cool--”

Chuck stares at him, eyes wide and bright behind his wild hair, then seems to deflate all at once, hunching in on himself. He wipes one hand over his face and groans, and Mike can see a blush starting to rise on his pale cheeks, drowning out his faint freckles.

“Oh, man, I probably reek,” he says. “I didn’t even think about it, I’ve been-- it’s been kinda nuts for me lately, dude, sorry. Yeah, I’ll wash up. I _promise_ I’m not crazy.”

“I know,” Mike says, even though he doesn’t really know at all. He wants to know! “You want me to come in with you?”

Chuck looks absolutely mortified, but nods.

Once inside, he catches sight of himself in the mirror and just kind of stares, brushing his hair back with one hand.

“Wow, okay,” he says, his voice tight and cracking. “Okay, man, wow. Okay. Right. And... okay, you actually-- you _believe_ me about the time travel? Because I do actually look crazy, man. I look totally out to lunch. Holy crap.”

Mike gestures awkwardly with his mocha. “Your eyes kinda, uh. Glow.”

Chuck blinks. “Yeah? I’m a programmer.”

“That’s not normal for like... now.”

“You don’t have computers? I thought--”

“We don’t have computers in our _eyes!_ Or like-- whatever’s going on with your arms! I mean like you don’t have to talk me into anything, you... you look like a guy from the future. Not a great future, but like, yeah.” Mike rubs the back of his neck, shrugs.

“Huh,” Chuck says, finally. “You don’t even have any comm links?” He sets his tea off to the side on the bathroom counter and takes Mike’s free hand. He turns it back and forth, looking for something, then pushes up Mike’s sleeve. He makes an interested hum, tracing the underside of Mike’s wrist, feeling for something that obviously isn’t there. A soft, static tickle spreads from his fingers into Mike’s bones, pulsing warmly, _seeking_ , and Mike shivers despite himself, because it’s-- it’s creepy but it’s _nice_ , breathtakingly _nice_ , and that’s way too intimate a feeling just to stand there and have with a guy he met an hour ago, no thanks. He takes his hand back and rubs the skin roughly.

“Yeah, dude,” he says, and has to swallow away an embarrassing hoarseness. “I definitely don’t have whatever you’ve got going on.”  

“Alright, point taken,” Chuck says, and laughs nervously. He checks his own hands over, then grimaces and turns to the sink, putting his tea off to one side. He seems to know how to work taps alright, because he gets both of them going and then-- wow, okay, just strips his shirt off, casually, drops it to the floor and dunks his head under the tap, and his back is mottled red and purple and old yellow and unless things really radically change in two hundred years those are bruises. Some of them look like boot prints and others are longer, more formless, sticks and fists and who knows what.

Mike bites his lip hard, so as not to make any weird horrified noises, and leans against the far wall, sipping slowly at his coffee. He doesn’t know what to ask, where to even start, so he just watches Chuck wash his hair with hand soap and then scrub quickly and methodically down his neck, arms, chest. He moves a little stiffly, kind of clumsy and halting, now that Mike’s watching-- now that he knows what to look for-- but he’s pretty flexible, and he acts like he does this all the time, a two-minute cat bath in some random sink on the run from killer robots. And the worst part is Mike is thinking now about Chuck bent over something a lot nicer than a bathroom sink, and what the long lean lines of his spine might look like with all his pale skin unmarred, and he probably shouldn’t be thinking about it but the guy’s like, right there, water running down his ribs, catching on the sharp purpled edge of a hipbone--

“There,” Chuck finally says, twisting water out of his hair and straightening up, flicking the taps off. “Jeez, that feels so much better. Where’s my-- there it is--” he gets his shirt from the ground, frowns at it, and dunks it in the sink.

“Dude, it’s November, don’t get your shirt wet,” Mike protests.

“What?” Chuck asks, already getting his shirt wet.

“You’re gonna freeze,” Mike says. “We can’t stay here till it’s dry--”

“We gotta leave now?” Chuck says, startled. He twists his shirt in two hands and then shakes it, and all the water just kinda... falls out in one greyish burst. When Chuck pulls it back on it’s clean and dry and _he’s_ clean and dry and even his hair’s hardly damp.

“What,” Mike says, and has to go feel Chuck’s sleeve. His arm is thick and warm underneath the dry fabric, and he smells _so much better now_ , and his hair turns out to be kind of a ridiculously bright, pretty gold when it’s clean, though it still falls wildly into his face. The guy pushes some out of his eyes and smiles down at Mike, sort of nervously.

“Is this another thing you guys don’t have yet? Smart clothes?”

“Yeah, guess so,” Mike says, and remembers all at once that he’s feeling up this guy’s very nice arm and all up in this guy’s business and they’re in a very small room together and that’s creepy. He steps back, ears hot, and brings his coffee cup up between them just a little bit awkwardly.

“So okay, we can get out of here if you want?”

“Yeah, I want, I really want,” Chuck agrees, and gives himself a last once-over in the mirror, raking fingers through his hair. Then he kind of pauses, looking at Mike over his reflection’s shoulder, and gives a weird, breathy laugh.

“You okay?” Mike asks, which is dumb, because: this guy definitely got nine kinds of shit beat out of him, pretty damn recently. But Chuck just shakes his head, smiling crookedly.

“No, sorry, it’s-- yeah, I’m fine, it’s just dumb, I just can’t believe like... I’m in a bathroom with the secret prequel edition of Mike freakin’ Chilton, it’s wild. No one ever said you were this-- this _cute little guy_  once! Like that’s-- no one ever-- I mean who _would_ \-- but _jeez_. I’m kind of having history whiplash, okay?”

“Um,” Mike says, because _wow_ , what? His ears are burning. “I’m not little?”

“Well I mean compared to like, a monument,” Chuck says. “And like also I’m taller than you, which, gotta say, is _also_ really weirding me out, sorry. We can go now. And I’ll stop being dumb. Actually no probably I won’t, but we _can_ go.” He grabs his tea and gestures for Mike to go out ahead of him.

The cashier’s stuck all the pastries in a big brown paper bag, and is busy restocking the display case. He glances up and smiles at the two of them as Mike comes over to give the bathroom key back and collect the bag.

“Thanks again, man,” Mike says, and squints at the guy’s name tag. “Dutch? Hey, don’t I know you?”

The guy straightens up, frowning. “Do you? From where?”

“Ummmmm...” Mike snaps his fingers a couple times, trying to remember.

“Dutch Gordy,” the guy says.

“Yeah! Gordy! You go to my school!”

“Oh, it’s _your_ school, huh?”

“Shut up, you know what I mean-- you’re the freshman who did that installation work, right, in the upper gallery? The spraypaint and scrap metal one?”

Dutch grins, slow and surprised. “Fuck yeah, that was me,” he says. “Did, uh, did you like it?”

“Like it? Hell, dude, I loved it, I’d have stolen it if it wasn’t all literally bolted down, you’re incredible, I’ve wanted to commission you to do a decal for my ride ever since. Why are you working _here_ , dude?”

“Um, my mom got me this job,” he says. “She knows the owner...”

“Listen, do you want a better job? You want a better job. Gimme some-- some paper-- thanks--” Mike grabs a pen from by the register and starts jotting down a number, “--look, I work at Jacob’s Autobody, we do like a lot of custom work, not just repairs, call this number tomorrow, it’s my buddy Texas’s, tell him Mike said you were gonna be the best detailer in Detroit or I’ll eat his hat and he’d be an idiot not to try you out. Okay?”

“Okay,” the guy repeats, looking kind of overwhelmed. “I-- really?”

“Um, Mike,” Chuck cuts in. Mike waves a hand at him absently.

“Yeah, really,” Mike says. “I’ve got the next couple days off but--”

“Mike! Sir!”

“--just get in there as soon as you can and show Tex your stuff, it’ll be fine--”

“ _COMMANDER  CHILTON!”_ Chuck screams, and Mike jumps about half a mile.

“What!” he demands, and follows Chuck’s finger to peer out the window. A bunch of red lights in the distance are bobbing closer, like lit-up balloons.

“That’s not good,” Mike concludes.

“No! No it isn’t!” Chuck says, sounding halfway hysterical. “Those are enforcer drones, Mike! They’re very bad!”

“Fuck,” Mike says, and turns back to Dutch, who’s gone from looking delighted to kind of baffled. “Hey, so, I’m dealing with some really weird sci-fi shit tonight, and you should probably get the window shutters down for a bit,” he says.

“Aw, fuck, are you in a gang?” Dutch demands. “Did you drag some crazy-ass gang bullshit over here? If I get shot up my mom’s gonna _kill me_.”

“It’s killer robots, but like don’t go peek and see or you’re gonna get lasered in the face, probably,” Mike says, walking backwards as Chuck drags him off. “Thanks for the doughnuts! Call Texas tomorrow!”

“Okay! I will! Don’t die in a shoot-out!” Dutch calls back. He’s already grabbed a pole hook to get the shutters, so Mike turns his full attention back to Chuck, who’s starting to manifest a supremely awesome amount of hologram screens.  

“What do we do now?” Mike asks.

“We get back in the car and you drive _very fast_ until we’re wherever Julie Kane is,” Chuck says nervously, “and at no point do we get shot with like sixty zillion lasers until we’re dead!”

“I like that plan, cool,” Mike says, and fishes his keys out of his pocket. In the time it takes to get the car on and running, Chuck’s somehow gotten a badass slingshot-gauntlet on around his wrist and is standing by the passenger side door, aiming frantically from one light to the other.

“Dude, get in!” Mike says, rolling the window down. “You can shoot at the deathbots while we drive!”

“I-- yeah, okay, probably,” Chuck agrees, and folds himself down to fit inside the car. Man, he’s all legs and arms, wiry muscle-- the eerie green of his targeting hologram screen lights his face up super dramatically, makes him into something almost inhuman. Mike fumbles shifting out of park for the first time in his life and has to bite his lip, hard, tear his eyes away from the passenger side and focus out the windshield.

Driving. He can do this. He’s really, really good at this. Beside him Chuck makes a high, unhappy whine, then lights the whole parking lot up with some kind of super-slingshot projectile that explodes like a whole July’s worth of fireworks.

“Wow,” Mike says, carefully turning the car around.  “That’s some Harry Potter shit, dude.”

There’s a whole lot of red-eyed, boxy robots bobbing towards them, like killer shoeboxes, but one of them is on the ground now, and also on very colorful fire.

“Less untranslatable cultural references, more driving, please!” Chuck snaps, and shoots another robot out of the air.

“I gotcha.” Mike takes the exit out of the parking lot that’s furthest from the bots, and is hitting 50mph by the time he hits the street, bouncing over bad road. Thank _fuck_ it’s still ass o’clock in the morning, he can murder his suspension without murdering much of anyone else.

And Chuck can murder robots. He works steadily, yelping and whining when the car rattles too much or he gets thrown around during a turn, but he sets off one gorgeous, magic firework-shot after the next, and Mike can see the flock of red eyes go down piece by piece.

Mike’s halfway to campus by the time Chuck gives a final, quavering sigh, and pulls his head and shoulders back through the window. When Mike glances over the guy’s face is sparkling with sweat, his hair all in wind-blown chunks everywhere, and his eyes are closed in relief, or exhaustion, or something. He looks wrecked, half-collapsed, chest heaving as he gasps. Mike hadn’t heard him getting so tired out, over the sound of the wind and the shooting and everything, but now it seems like the loudest thing in the world, his ragged panting.  

“You okay?” Mike asks.

Chuck runs a shaky hand over his face and nods, wordless. God, he looks so tired. A bead of sweat drops off his chin. Mike hits a speed bump at a really unholy speed and has to focus on the road again.

“There’s, um, doughnuts and stuff,” he says. “I didn’t forget the bag!”

“Oh! Yeah, food, calories--” Chuck mumbles, and goes rummaging around in the footwell for wherever the bag ended up. Mike can hear when he gets it, because there’s a sharp rustling, then a pause, then Chuck makes a noise that almost makes Mike crash the car.

“This is _food!?_ ” the guy demands, his voice gone all low and hoarse and-- wet, or something-- and Mike blurts out an incredibly awkward, stupid-sounding laugh, because _wow_ , okay.

“Yep,” he says. “Yep, that’s food, buddy, go for it. All yours.”

Chuck makes another savoring, musical sort of moan of delight and then there’s a lot more rustling, and some slightly gross munching sounds, which Mike is more than a little relieved about, because, robots, death robots, driving, saving the world stuff is happening now. Not totally stupid insta-crushes on weird, cute time refugees.

They’re only a mile from campus before Mike sees the flash of red and blue lights out the side window, and slows down way, way too late. A siren splits the night and Chuck jolts in terror beside him, flailing wildly and then scrabbling to try and get the window down.

“Don’t, it’s the cops,” Mike sighs, and lets the car slow to a halt.

“Cops?” Chuck repeats, high-pitched and panicky. “What are the cops, why’re we stopping?”

“Uh, the police, the... fuzz? Pigs? They get you if you break the law?”

“Dang,” Chuck says, fervently, “heck, _shoot,_ ” and presses himself into the far corner of the seat. He’s breathing way too fast again, his eyes flashing, and that cyber-slingshot of his has somehow reformed around his arm. Mike can see the cop car parked behind them, the heavy shape of an officer getting out.

“Don’t shoot at the cops,” Mike says, “or we’re totally fucked, okay?” He dares to put a hand on Chuck’s shoulder. He squeezes, hoping he doesn’t get a bruise or anything, and Chuck takes a long, shaky breath and holds it. He nods, once and then a few times fast, and twists his slingshot out of existence. His hands keep twisting, though, fingers tangling around each other, and the shoulder under Mike’s palm is narrow and too-warm and trembling.

“It’s cool,” Mike says, “everything’s cool. I got you.” _This_ , he’d meant to say _I got_ _this_ , but-- Chuck closes those crazy eyes of his, nods again. He looks like he’s counting under his breath, desperately trying to stay in control of himself, and Mike feels very responsible, all of a sudden. Protective.

He rolls his window down when the cop knocks on it, and a huge wave of relief pours through him to see a familiar face.

“Officer Tooley,” Mike says, smiling maybe a little too wide. “Great to see you, man!”

“Thanks, Chilton,” Tooley says, taken aback. “Nice to see you too--”

“--You’re _just_ who I wanted to see tonight--”

“That’s-- that’s nice--”

“--I was thinking, man! Isn’t it a long time since I saw Tooley! Way too long!”

“--I guess? I mean I’m a police officer, you shouldn’t be seeing me much?”

“Don’t be so hard on yourself, dude,” Mike says sincerely, and pats Tooley’s hand. “You’re a great guy. Anyone would wanna hang out with you.”

“Hey, yeah. I think so too. But you know, the guys at the station are really mean?”

“What? But they’re _cops!”_

“I know!” Tooley tilts his helmet back and scratches his forehead. “They’re just a bunch of jerks. I didn’t think it’d be like this at the academy.”

“Yeah, everyone was so nice at the academy,” Mike says brightly. “That’s what I remember about it.”

“Yeah, for sure,” Tooley says. “Real shame you dropped out.”

“Actually,” and here Mike leans in, conspiratorially. “Maybe I didn’t drop out, you know?”

“I do? I mean, you didn’t?”

“Yeah, I mean-- maybe there’s a secret, you know, a secret police department. With a secret academy. And _maybe_ I went _there_.”

“You _did?”_

“Well, if I did, it would be a secret,” Mike says. He leans to the side enough that when he glances back at Chuck, he knows Tooley can see him too: this tall, strange kid hunched up in the passenger seat, his eyes two brilliant blue rings in the dark, like a robot, or an alien, or something even weirder.

“ _Ohhh_ ,” Tooley says quietly. “Is that why you were going so fast? Cuz I clocked you at--”

“I wasn’t going a mile faster than I needed to, tonight,” Mike says firmly. “You know how it is when you’re on a mission, Tooley.”

“I-- yeah, I do, you gotta go fast. Sirens and lights and everything.”

“That’s what I always liked about you, Tooley. You know when a guy has to go fast.”

“I do! When you gotta, you gotta.”

“Thanks, Tooley. You’re the best.”

“Aw, you’re just saying that.”

“No, I mean it, man! You’re the best. Say hi to the Captain for me, will you?”

“Will do! Bye, Mike. Good luck on your--” Tooley hesitates, then winks. “ _You know what_.”

“Sure will!” Mike salutes the officer, who returns the salute, cheerfully, then turns and walks back to his car, humming the _Mission Impossible_ tune.

Mike waits until Tooley’s gotten all the way back in his vehicle and driven away before letting out a huge sigh of relief and slumping back against his seat. His heart’s pounding in his ears.

“Holy fuck, we lucked out,” he says. “Anyone but Tooley and we’d have been _screwed_.”

“You knew him?” Chuck asks, uncurling a little from his miserable fear-huddle. “You were a-- the cops?”

“Nah, I got kicked out of the academy when I was like, eighteen,” Mike says. “I mean, cop school. Turns out the police don’t like it when you try to arrest them for crimes. Especially when they’re one of your instructors. You didn’t know? Like, this isn’t in the, like, the books? About me? Are there books about me?”

Chuck shakes his head, stretches his arms and legs back out. “The earliest surviving historical documentation was your college diploma.” Holograms begin to bloom around him again, showing all kinds of weird graphs and charts. “That’s how I knew to find you now, you’d have had to attend at least senior year at the same school to graduate, that’s how it worked then-- now. Whatever. So the target window could be six, maybe even eight months, without losing the lock on you.”

“Huh.” Mike frowns. “...Wait, so if you have diplomas on record, why didn’t you just go right to Julie? We’re in the same major, does she just not graduate or something?”

“Julie Kane’s a cypher,” Chuck says. “A, a character, a _myth_. There’s no primary source material for her whatsoever, not even photos: anything that ever had any evidence of her was altered or wiped by her successors, over the decades. But you’re... just a little less legendary, I guess. There’s a couple points in your life where we know exactly where and when you were.”

“And one of them is my _college graduation_ ,” Mike says, and runs a hand through his hair, thinking about it. “Guess it’s cool to know I don’t bomb midterms.”

“Hah. Yeah. It’s so weird to think about you like-- caring about _grades_ , and stuff. Studying!”

“I don’t really study,” Mike admits.

Chuck laughs, bright and sweet. “That sounds about right,” he says, “I bet you just wing it.” The smile he shoots Mike is so... knowing, familiar, something like that. Like Mike’s someone he already knows-- already _likes_. Mike feels his face heating, and runs his hand through his hair again, this time a little shyly.

“Don’t knock what works, buddy,” he says. “I’m betting it’s a pretty good strategy for the rest of my life, too, huh?”

“It gets you pretty far,” Chuck confirms.

“Well, let’s hope it gets us both through tonight,” Mike says, and shifts the car back into drive.


	2. Chapter 2

 

There’s a comfortable silence for the brief time it takes to get to campus, then navigate to Julie’s chapter house. Chuck gradually stops smiling and starts chewing on his lower lip, tension winding through his narrow shoulders and the way he taps and pokes at his screens, going faster and sharper, long fingers slicing through the air. Mike stays still for a minute after he pulls into guest parking, just watching Chuck move.

“...Are we here?” Chuck finally asks, surfacing from nervous contemplation of a bunch of pulsing, blocky shapes that twitch around their screen and eat each other.

“Yeah,” Mike says, and gets out of the car.  He kind of wants to know what’s up with the blocks, but is completely certain that he’d regret asking.

Evidently Mike’s luck ran out with Tooley, because Claire answers the sorority door.

“Oh,” she says, nose wrinkling. “...It’s you.”

“Hi, Claire,” Mike says patiently. “Nice to see you, too. Is Jules in?”

“Mike it’s four in the morning on a Tuesday, this is _the worst_ time for a booty call _I have ever seen_.”

“Claire, what the fuck, we’re both gay,” Mike says, cramming his foot in the door when she goes to slam it on him. “This is an actual emergency, you know!”

“I know no such freakin’ thing!” Claire says, recoiling. “You’re what? _She’s_ what? I thought you guys were _doing it_!”

“What, no, she’s like an iron-clad kinsey six, are you kidding?”

“No she isn’t! Like if she _was_ gay then yeah that’d be awesome and I’d hit that like a freakin’ _meteor_ but she’s been stuck on you _forever!_ I was waiting on you two to get _married!_  I had a _dress picked out!_  What the _hell!”_

By now they’re in the foyer, which is progress, except Claire looks about ready to murder him, which isn’t great. Mike can’t just let Chuck shoot her, that would be mean.

“Claire, I absolutely promise that I’m not going to marry Julie,” Mike says. “Except in like a cool friend way for tax purposes or something. But even then, like, I’m starting to think it’d be a really bad idea, and anyway-- hey. Is this why you hate me? 'Cuz you thought I was sleeping with your girl crush?”

“I don’t hate you,” Claire says. “You’re just not good enough for Julie, even like, for a tax write-off marriage. You work at a garage. She could do _so_ much better.”

“Okay, cool,” Mike says, even though his feelings are kind of hurt. “Anyway, I really need to see Julie, right now, tonight, thanks for letting us in, I promise I’m not gonna have sex with her.”

“You better not,” Claire says dangerously. Then, more tentatively: “...She’s really gay? I mean, um, lesbian?”

“She only keeps her hair long ‘cuz she likes when you brush it, she’s _homosexual as hell_ ,” Mike says. “I swear on my honor as someone who is also gay. Ask her out. But like tomorrow. Tonight I got dibs. C’mon, Chuck, her room’s down this way.”

Chuck jumps a little, to be addressed, and Claire jumps back entirely with a shriek. Apparently the guy can blend right into the shadows when he doesn’t want to be noticed, which is a handy trick for a fluorescently white guy who’s like six foot five and has laser eyes.

Mike heads down the dark hallway of the sorority, mindful that they’re surrounded by a whole lot of sleeping girls and it’s still way too darn early in the morning.  But there’s a flickering light spilling out from under the door to Julie’s room, and it flickers when Mike knocks.

“...Yeah?” Julie calls, quietly.

“It’s me,” Mike calls back, just as soft.

There’s a long pause, then the door cracks open.

“Mike? What?” Julie asks. She looks tired, big dark creases under her eyes, and her hair’s up in a sloppy bun. A long, thin allen wrench is tucked behind one ear, and when she opens the door more to peer confusedly at Chuck, Mike smells the sharp scent of solder from inside.

“Jules,” he groans, “are you working on circuit boards in your room again?”

“No,” she says, unconvincingly, and goes to close the door on him. Mike huffs at her and wedges his way inside, gesturing back at Chuck to follow him.

“ _Julie_ ,” he says, “C’mon, this shit isn’t healthy, there isn’t enough ventilation in here.”

“I had the window open, _Mom_ ,” Julie says. “It’s fine. I’m fine. Who’s this?”

Mike goes and closes the window, because holy shit, it’s November, she’s going to get pneumonia on top of lung cancer. While he’s at it, he unplugs her soldering gun, then has to fumble a bit to get her lamp plugged back in. By the time he’s straightened up, Chuck’s finished easing into the room and is in the process of trying to lock the door, his face drawn and tense.

“Just flip the-- there’s a switch on the knob, buddy,” Mike says.

“Cool, okay,” Chuck says distractedly, and flicks it.

“Anyway, this is Chuck,” Mike says. “He’s from the future!”

“And, um, he’s-- I’m-- I’m really sorry about this,” Chuck says, voice high and hoarse and cracking, and he’s got his slingshot gauntlet back on, suddenly. Everything seems to slow down, _way_ down, for Mike: he feels like he’s taking in everything all at once, the glitter of sweat on Chuck’s jaw, the harsh unhappy line of his mouth, the way he slowly, _slowly_ pulls the firing pad of the slingshot back to his ear, an incongruously primitive, archer-like gesture for something made of light and flickering there-and-gone-and-there-again metal.

The way he points the weapon right at Julie, who’s standing in the middle of her bedroom, looking bleary and confused and only a little suspicious.

“ _No!”_ Mike shouts, and throws himself between them, arms wide, just as Chuck releases the firing pad. Everything goes loud and bright and immediate again, a firework blast of green and gold light exploding across his chest. It punches him back into Julie, knocking them both down, and Mike gasps with the shock and pain of it. Julie’s shouting, angry, pushing him to the side.

Mike goes _“No,”_ again but it’s a breathless moan, not a shout, or an order. His heart feels... weird, now. Stuttering. Too hot. Julie’s rising to her feet and Chuck’s drawing back to fire again.

“I’m sorry,” he’s saying, over and over, “I’m sorry, I’m _so sorry,_ I’ve gotta, I’m sorry!”

Julie doesn't wait around to get shot like Mike. She grabs up her desktop lamp and clubs Chuck right across the face with it. He yelps and the lightbulb shatters, plunging the room into a confusing black and blue darkness. Chuck’s eyes blaze like headlights as he claws glass shards out of his bangs, his slingshot coming apart in blocky, unreal-looking chunks. Julie hits him again, then hammers her heel into the side of his knee. Chuck screams as he goes down-- Mike staggers to his feet and doesn’t know what to do, frozen by the memory of all those awful bruises on Chuck’s pale skin, and the way his own chest still throbs from the slingshot blast.

Chuck shot him. Chuck _lied_ to him.

“Mike, get back,” Julie snaps, and she’s holding something small and blocky, something sizzling. Holy fuck, it’s a taser. Mike gets back.

“What—?” Chuck has enough time to say, looking up from clutching at his knee, and then the leads hit him and he _screams_ , a hideous, tearing, dying noise. His eyes flare so brightly it _hurts_ to look at them as he arches and spasms and cries, then, abruptly, his eyes go dark. He slumps to the ground, gasping raggedly, twitching.

Unconscious? Mike stumbles over, drops to his knees by the guy. His face is-- oh, fuck, oh fuck, _his_ _tears_ _are_ _steaming_. His head is totally limp in Mike’s hands, his jaw slack.

“Okay,” Julie says, coming over to retract the leads, bundle the taser back up. “Okay, so, what the _hell_ was that? Are you like, are you friends with theater nerds now, is that what that was? Is this some kind of late Halloween thing?”

Her voice is very high. Mike puts Chuck’s head back down on the ground carefully. He twitches a little, but stays put. His eyes are still dark, eyelids slack. His slingshot’s gone again, totally vanished from his limp arm.

“He’s honest to god a time traveler,” Mike says quietly. “I didn’t know he planned to _kill_ you, though, he lied to me.”

“About being a time traveler?” Julie asks, and gives a hysterical little laugh. Mike just looks at her unhappily.

“You saw his eyes, right?” he says. “And the holograms and stuff? He has like a lightsaber slingshot, Jules. We’ve been running from killer robots all night. He wasn’t lying about the time travel.”

“Oh,” Julie says, very quiet. She walks carefully around Chuck’s limp body and sits by Mike, then puts her head on his shoulder. Mike puts his arm around her thin, shivering back. She doesn’t ask anything else, and Mike just holds her for awhile, trying to breathe steadily. His chest feels weird, now, tight and aching like a sunburn that’s gone all the way down to the bone, but less painful than being shot probably should be, considering what happened to all those robots. Chuck was really obviously shooting to kill, so why isn’t Mike dead? Not that he _wants_ to be.

Mike’s cellphone rings, making him and Julie jump about a mile. Julie lets out a wavering, squeaky little giggle, leaning back into Mike, and Mike can’t help but laugh a little too, fumbling his phone out of his jacket.

“Hey, _there_ you are!” Texas says, when Mike answers the call. “Tiny, what gives, I’ve been calling you for like an hour now! You too good to pick up the dang phone or what?”

Mike frowns. “No, I haven’t heard anything since I left the garage.” He pulls the phone away from his face, checks the logs. “Yeah, there’s no missed calls-- shit, I think maybe they were getting blocked...?”

“--Okay whatever, did you get the pizza yet? I’m starving!”

“Uh, no, there’s been-- it’s been a weird night. I had to deal with some stuff.” Mike contemplates Chuck’s limp form. “Um, can I call you back?”

“No! What stuff? How weird? You in trouble? Do I gotta bail you out again? Does this mean I should get the pizza?”

“I’m gonna call you back,” Mike decides, and hangs up.

“Mike?” Julie asks, in a weird, tiny voice.

“Yeah? What?” he asks, peering down at her. She points at the window, her mouth a tight, unhappy line and her eyes really wide.

Mike turns to see the Ultra Enforcer crouched down outside like a cat at a mousehole, its floodlight eye dimmed to almost nothing, but pulsing, slowly. Like it’s just waiting.

“Well, fuck,” he says.

“Killer robots?” Julie says.

“Yep,” Mike says.

For lack of any better option, he pulls Julie onto his lap and wraps his arms tightly around her, back squarely towards the big monster robot thing, his spine prickling in anticipation of getting torn apart by metal jaws or laser bolts or _something_.  It really speaks to how freaked out his best friend is that she lets him play meat shield: he’s had to haul her off guys three times her size before, bloody-knuckled and still cursing. Julie isn’t anyone’s idea of a damsel in distress.

No, instead she’s some kind of _assassination bait_.  

Nothing happens, though: for a couple minutes, they both just sit there and breathe and hang on to each other, expecting the worst.

“...Not very kill-ey,” Julie says, eventually.

Slowly, suspiciously, Mike uncoils.

“Chuck said... he said they couldn’t shoot him directly,” he says. “Or they’d fry the time machine he stole.”

“Well, he’s over there,” Julie says. “He’s not exactly in the way. Did he ever actually _say_ they were killer robots? Or did you just assume?”

Mike tries to remember. “He wanted to get to you before they did,” he said. “So, uh. Yeah. I guess I just figured he was the good guy, here.”

“Mike, you useless lesbian,” Julie sighs.

“Don’t you fucking meme at me, Kapulski, it’s way too early.”

She lets out a soft, fragile giggle, and pushes her way out of his arms. He hates letting her go, but it’s pretty obvious that he’s not actually doing anything _useful_ , here. He still scrambles right up after her, though, sticking close as Julie readies her taser and approaches the window. She levers it up with ease of long practice, and doesn’t even wince at the cold November breeze that pours through, or the flare of cool white light from the monsterbot’s eyeball.

“Hi there, big guy,” Julie says, conversationally. “I’m Julie.”

“Julie Kane,” Mike says, realizing. “...You’re Julie _Kane_. These are _your_ robots.”

The giant robot shifts its weight around a bit, and opens its long, houndlike maw.

“Identification confirmed,” it says in a _bizarrely_ polite, gender-neutral, pre-recorded voice. It sounds like a smartphone or something. “Julie Kane, Founding CEO of Kane Company. How may I serve you?”  

“Uh. Do you have a cloaking function?” Julie asks.

“No.”

“Can you get smaller?”

“Yes.”

“How small?”

“Maximum compaction is .5 meters.”

“Do it. Uh, please.”

It ducks its head and then folds up like a transformer toy, scaling impossibly down and _down_ , until something that looked like the nightmare fusion of a rhino and a garbage truck is the same shape and size as a 90’s laptop.

“...Thank you,” Julie says, belatedly, and leans out the window to scoop the chunky rectangle off the grass. She clutches it to her chest and goes over to her work chair, dropping into it hard. Mike is _incredibly_ alarmed to see that her eyes are watering, dripping tears down her cheeks, and she’s trembling violently. He shuts the window fast and goes over to her, touching her shoulder in helpless concern.

“Jules,” he says. “Jules, you okay...?”

“I’m holding the future in my hands and it called me _boss_ ,” Julie says, and gives a sobbing, wild peal of laughter. “I’ve got a giant killer robot _on my lap!_ Some kid just tried to _kill_ me to keep _this_ from happening and it _did_ and now what? What kind of person makes a killer robot making company? What kind of person deserves _time traveling assassins?_ Who names herself after _Cain?_ ”

“It could be cane, like, sugar cane,” Mike says weakly.

“They’re giant robots, not cupcakes,” Julie says.

Mike’s phone rings again.

“So do I get the pizza myself or not?” Texas wants to know.

“Texas,” he says, impatiently. “Look, dude, I’m--”

“--In trouble again,” Texas sighs, picking up on his tone. “Little man, you gotta tell me these things when they happen, what’s up?”

“It’s-- I’m-- someone took a shot at Julie tonight, we’re kind of-- trying to figure out what to do about it,” Mike admits. “It’s really weird, okay? You’re gonna have to get the pizza yourself.”

“Yeah, sure, but what do you mean someone shot at Julie, _your_ Julie? Bring her here, I’ll sit on her, I’ve got guns, okay? Tell her that. I’ll give her a gun. Jesus, who shoots at a girl like _Julie_ , she’s so cute! Bring her here so I can sit on her or I’ll get you fired.”

Mike breathes out, and a weight he hadn’t even noticed pinning his heart down starts to ease.

“Okay, cool,” he says, and his voice comes out kind of wobbly. “Thanks, Tex.”

“I told you, you have to let me _know_ when you need me to come’n save you. Julie still like pineapple?”

“No one sane likes pineapple,” Mike says.

“I want pineapple,” Julie says, wetly, from her chair. Texas hears it somehow and crows with triumph.

“Hell yeah, _Hawaii_ ,” he says, with deep satisfaction. “Pineapple and ham and a gun, coming up. Three guns. Get over here before it’s cold.”

He hangs up before Mike can thank him again, or start sniffling too. Mike takes a deep, shaky breath, scrubs at his face, and pockets his phone.

“Okay, well, we’re going back to the garage,” Mike says. “I don’t wanna get fired.”

“Are we taking... him?” Julie asks, and nods at Chuck’s limp body.

“...Yeah, I think we have to. Like, he’s not... going anywhere. Back in time, or whatever. I think we’d better keep him around. And at least the garage is... private.”

“More private than here, yeah. And it’s got chains and stuff.”

“Jesus, Julie! You wanna _torture_ him or something?”

“Well I mean, he fucking shot you, so maybe yeah!”

“Holy shit! No!”

“Mike! Not like, for real torture, I mean like-- we should at least-- lock him up or something! Get some handcuffs! He has space guns in his arms!”

Mike can’t actually argue with that. His chest still aches and he’s kind of scared that if he takes his shirt off he’ll find out he’s got radiation poisoning or something.

“Okay,” he sighs. “Okay, cool, yeah. We’ll... I don’t know, we’ll get his hands tied up. Take it from there. Maybe we can get some straight answers from him if we scare him a little. Fuck.”

Julie sniffs hard, wipes her nose on the back of her wrist. “We’re... we’re not the bad guys, here. _He_ started shooting. We just. Deserve to know what the fuck is going on.”

“Yeah. Yeah. That’s fair.” Mike kneels down by Chuck’s side and turns him on to his side, feeling sick even as he tries to be gentle. “...You got zip ties?”

“...Yeah.”

 

*

 

“So you’re keeping the dude who shot Julie?” Texas asks, watching Mike and Julie wrestle a worryingly still-unconscious Chuck out of the back seat.

“Yep,” Mike says. “Grab his legs, would you?”

“I got them!” Julie says, but she’s breathing hard and juggling the robot laptop and doesn’t protest much when Texas elbows her aside.

“Where do we put him?” Texas wants to know. “There’s a store room. With chains and junk. I got some jumper cables I bet we could rig up.”

“No!” Mike says. “No torture! We’ll... look, can we use the break room couch?”

“I don’t wanna get more stains on that thing,” Texas says. “It’s already like, a million years old.”

“No torture,” Julie repeats. “I appreciate the enthusiasm, though, thanks, Texas.”

“Yeah, well, no problem,” Texas shifts Chuck’s legs so he’s holding them under just one of his arms, then rummages in his jumpsuit’s pocket and pulls out a sleek black pistol. “Here, catch!”

“Holy shit!” Julie yelps, and grabs it out of the air, nearly fumbling the laptop. “Jesus, Texas, is this a beretta?”

“Nice eye,” Texas says approvingly. “You know how to shoot?”

“I-- yeah, but-- is this _legal_?”

“Long’s you don’t leave witnesses, anything’s legal, Stacy,” Texas says.

“Okay, I didn’t hear that,” Mike says.

“Hear what?” Texas grins.

“ _Shit_ ,” Julie says, and double-checks the safety before stuffing it in a back pocket.

They make it to the break room, a comfortable den-style hangout off the main floor and around the corner from Jacob’s usually-empty office, and Mike lowers Chuck stomach-down on to the couch. His hands are zip-tied behind his back, the wrists starting to look raw from the pressure of the thin plastic, and when Mike checks his eyes again the irises are a creepy, burnt-out grey. His whole body is slack, except for random, intermittent shivers. Whatever kind of operating system he was running, however it was wired into his brain, it _really_ wasn’t made to deal with getting tasered.

Mike runs his hand over the guy’s bright, messy hair, brushing it away from his face, only for it to spill right back over his empty eyes. He feels like a creep, or a monster, or both. What if Chuck’s got brain damage now? What if he’s in a coma or something? What if Mike totally fucked up the whole future, or even just this one guy, and he’s a murderer, or an accessory to murder, or something, he ruined this guy’s _life_.

“Please wake up,” he says, helplessly.

Texas clears his throat from behind him. “Yeah, so, let’s eat,” he says, brisk and too loud. “This guy isn’t going anywhere any time soon, I figure.”

They eat. Mike picks the pineapple off his pizza, but it’s still too sweet, all soggy and sugar-coated, and Julie just laughs at him when he makes faces. It’s good to hear her laugh, so he maybe makes a few extra faces, just because. Texas fusses over them in his own particular gruff, careless-seeming way, by turns heckling them to eat more and chattering aimlessly about all the movies he’s seen and weights he’s lifted and chicks he’s banged.

“I could give you tips, Lisa,” he offers. “You given up on that stuck-up sorority friend of yours yet?”

Julie sighs, miserably, and rests her forehead on the table. Texas pats her thin shoulder consolingly.

“There, there,” he says. “She’s not good enough for you. She doesn’t even have a job! You should marry me and have threesomes with all the babes I bring home constantly. It’d be feminist as _hell_.”

“You don’t know what feminism is,” Mike says, amused.

“Feminism is the radical notion that women are radical people,” Texas says, and shoots fingers guns at him. “Kapow! Get wrecked, you big chauvinist. You don’t even _like_ women!”

“I like women just fine,” Mike protests. “I like Julie!”

“Yeah well I like women more than _both_ of you, _and_ I’m gettin’ laid on the regular,” Texas says, holding his hands up like he’s won a race. “So there. Texas owns your sorry gay butts _again_.”

Julie and Mike sigh at the same time, then crack up laughing. After that they break out a pack of cards and play Crazy Eights for awhile, and it’s almost like they’re just hanging out, blowing off work and school just to goof around like teenagers.

Then a low, shuddering _whine_ comes from the break room, and Mike jumps to his feet fast enough to knock his chair over, spilling cards everywhere. He rushes into the room, Julie right behind him, to find that Chuck’s managed to tip himself half off the couch, and is now sprawled awkwardly with his shoulders on the ground and one long leg hooked over an arm rest, his face sort of dazed and absent.

He focuses pretty fast when he catches sight of Julie, though. His eyes aren’t glowing much, but they’re not burnt out anymore, and they’re definitely wide enough to tell as he tries to huddle in on himself. He opens his mouth and makes only a weird, stammering whimper, shaking his head back and forth.

“Is he brain damaged or somethin’?” Texas asks, pushing into the room. He puts his hands on his hips and regards Chuck curiously. “Hey, Skinny, you been hit upside the head or what?”

“I-- I’m-- no, I’m, um...” Chuck darts a look between Texas and Julie, then stares plaintively up at Mike. “...Sorry, but, is this supposed to be like, baby Texas Kim? You’re hanging out with _Texas Kim_?”

“Uh, yeah?” Mike asks. “What, is that bad too?”

“ _What_?” Texas demands. “Who says!”

“It’s like 2017, you shouldn’t even know each other for another decade,” Chuck says. He’s still upside down, terror apparently subsumed by baffled curiosity.

“He’s my coworker,” Mike says. “We fix cars.”

“Oh. Okay. Weird. Uh. You can torture me now, I just wanted to know.” Chuck says.

“We’re not torturing you,” Mike says firmly.

“Yet,” Julie says, and Chuck’s attention snaps back to her.

“Julie!” Mike protests. She _holds her hand up_ in his _face,_ and he cuts off on instinct, but he’s mad about it.

“Texas, can you get him back onto the couch, please?” she asks, and her other hand has... she’s holding the gun, now, and she doesn’t look very much like his best friend, now. She’s standing very tall, the gun held down and a little to the side like Mike’s shown her on the shooting range before because it’s useful to know how to shoot if you’re a small thin lesbian in Detroit but he never showed her how to look like you might just calmly _execute someone_. She’s just doing that all on her own.

 _Julie Kane_ , Mike thinks, and feels sort of scared of her, for the first time ever.

Texas gets Chuck sat upright on the couch, and checks that his hands are still zip-tied.

“We leavin’ these on?” he asks. “There’s some blood, I think he cut himself when he fell over.”

Chuck’s breathing very slowly and evenly through his teeth, though his shoulders tense and shiver every now and then, like he’s fighting some kind of impulse to run, or cry, or something. He looks at Julie with a really, really horrible kind of tiredness, like he knows how this is going to go and just wants it to be over already. Mike can’t stop thinking about all those bruises all over his body.  

“Are you going to shoot at me again?” Julie asks. “If I let Texas cut you loose?”

“I’m out of power,” Chuck says flatly. “I’ve been running on empty for way too long. Thought I had enough saved up for you, but.” He nods towards Mike. “Chilton looks fine, and that was everything I had left. So. No. I’m done.”

“Good. Texas, you can get those ties off him.”

Texas grunts agreement and pulls a pocket knife out of his jumpsuit. Chuck takes a harsh, unhappy breath in and holds it, twitching, eyes squeezed tightly shut. He seems surprised when Texas doesn’t do anything more than pop the plastic strips around his wrist and then step back, wiping a fleck of red off the blade.

“...Thanks,” Chuck says, cautiously.

“Don’t mention it,” Texas says. “We’re still gonna kick your ass.”

“Texas!” Mike protests, but Chuck just nods, sighing.

“So what’s all this about shootin’ Julie?" Texas demands. " _And_ Mike? They’re good dudes, they’ve never done nothin’ wrong to nobody! You tryin’a do some hate crime shit?”

“I was trying to save the future,” Chuck says. “And I totally blew it.” He brings his hands around, very slowly and carefully, and examines his wrists: the left one has a harsh, wet line of red where a zip-tie bit in too deeply, and he methodically licks away the blood.

“How many times have you been tortured?” Mike asks, before he means to, and Chuck glances up at him.

“I don’t know, a couple,” he says. “Why, you guys need pointers?”

The wave of sick revulsion that goes through Mike is apparently visible on his face, because Chuck laughs tiredly and shakes his head, goes back to rubbing at his wrists, flexing his long, raw-knuckled fingers.

He says, “You’re all so _young_. I can’t-- maybe that’s why I couldn’t-- I should have tried in the 2030’s. You guys are my age here and it’s really screwing with me.”

“Let’s talk about that,” Julie says firmly. “Why _did_ you come back to now? And when did you come from?”

Chuck shifts uneasily, then winces when Texas cracks his knuckles at him.

“Texas, _stop,_ ” Mike growls.

“No, it’s cool, I’m-- I’m just thinking!” Chuck says hastily. “It’s, it’s a lot. To. I don’t, um! I haven’t put it in, put it all in order yet in my head, I guess, sorry, don’t hit me yet!”

“Take your time,” Julie says. “I mean, we evidently have a lot of it.”

Chuck gives a nervous, dutiful laugh, then bites his lip. “Okay,” he says. “Okay. I’m from-- mm-- 2214 Anno Domini, I think it’d be, by your Gregorian calendar? We’d say 4912 A.S., atomic standard. Uh, from the Chinese, they had atomic clocks going while, uh, while a lot of other stuff melted down, there was disagreement, for awhile, how long the years were, uh. Um. I promise I’m not making this up. Or just D-34, for years after the inauguration of the Detroit Deluxe client state.”

“Huh,” Julie says thoughtfully. “You’re _smart_ , aren’t you?”

“Yes,” Chuck says. “Ma’am,” he adds. “98th percentile in connective-creative intellect, even graded on a curve. I was jumped three cohorts forward in my assignment to Kane Co’s Research and Development Sector, and earned five merit commendations before escaping to Old Detroit.”

“ _Escaping_ ,” Mike repeats. Swallows hard, has to look away. “...Good for you,” he mutters, and sees Chuck sit up straight, look surprised, from the corner of his eye.

Julie nods, slowly. “Resourceful, too. You don’t just do what you’re told, do you?”

“I’d still be back in the brain farms, if I was,” Chuck says wryly. “Have a whole lot less bruises, too.”

Julie smiles, and Chuck smiles nervously back. It seems like he can’t help mouthing off, even as certain as he is that he’s not getting out of this without another thorough beating, if at all.

“So the million dollar question here, is why were you trying to kill me?” she asks Chuck. “I want you to look me in the eye and tell me why I should be dead.”

“I can’t stop the Kane Company from the present, my present,” Chuck says. “I tried, we’ve all tried, we’ve _been_ trying, longer than I’ve been alive. You built it too well for anyone to tear it down. And it’s awful. It’s-- do you guys have a word for--” he squeezes his eyes shut, obviously struggling for the vocabulary, “-- _dictatorship_ . That’s close. I keep trying to say _empire_ or _kingdom_ or _theocracy_ but they’re not, they don’t seem right. An organization whose only purpose is itself. The ordering of itself. The controlling, the, the _exalting_. Of itself. And the destruction of anything else.”

Chuck leans forward intently, his hands folding up between his knees. His face is drawn and earnest now, he looks at Julie like he desperately hopes she’s listening.

“I don’t know what it was like, outliving America, but it made all the survivors crazy,” he says. “And really sad. And really, _really_ determined not to build anything that ever broke down, ever again, no matter what. And so far, the Kane Company hasn’t. And it probably won’t. So that’s why I came all the way back here, before any of it even started, because that’s the only thing I could think of that would work.”

“And what happens if all of that gets erased?” Julie asks. “That’s two hundred years of history you’re rewriting, right? Would things be totally different, when you get back to the future, or would some other company just take over where mine wasn’t anymore?”

Chuck shrugs. “I don’t know,” he says. “This is the first working time machine, no one knows. The fact that I haven’t erased myself from existence means that the supposition about time-travel burning your tail off was right, at least.”

“Your _what?”_ Mike demands.

“Uh, like my tail in the fourth dimension, my past-- I looped back in time and then burnt off-- cauterized-- the far end of the loop, just as a function of how time travel works, apparently. So I’m stuck wherever I landed, but I’m also not going to scare the wrong butterfly and disappear because I wrote myself out of existence.”

Julie purses her lips. “So you’re never going to get to see whatever future you’re making here, by changing things? You don’t even have any idea what you’re changing them _to_?”

“Yeah,” Chuck says. “Basically. I mean, anything would be better than what there was. So.” He shrugs.

Julie nods thoughtfully. “So, with all of that down, after everything-- you’re smart, you’re passionate, you’re out of any better options, and you’re _stuck_ here-- you still couldn’t kill me.”

“I tried,” Chuck says, in a crushed little voice. His shoulders tremble, and he squeezes his hands between his knees. “I’m sorry. I did try.”

Texas’s fists bunch, but before Chuck can do more than flinch, Texas has turned on his heel and stalked out of the room. Mike almost goes after him, just on instinct, but is stuck looking to Julie. She nods.

“Yeah, go after him,” she says. “Give him a hug for me. This is some heavy stuff.”

“But Chuck’s still... I mean, is he gonna... are you... gonna be okay? Here? With him?”

“She’s got the gun, dude,” Chuck says quietly. “Maybe you shouldn’t be here for this next bit.”

Mike stares at him, horrified.

“Jules...?” he asks, and his voice is small and strangled and all wrong in his throat, too uncertain.

“I won’t,” Julie says. “I _promise_ I won’t. Go on, Mike, it’s gonna be fine. I’ll be out in a couple minutes.”

Mike nods slowly. He backs out of the room, prickling all over, and the last thing he sees before he closes the door is Chuck trying to smile bravely for him.

He scrubs at his face, takes a deep breath, and goes to find Texas.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> content warning: extra body horror in this chapter

 

The guy is out on the garage floor, staring blankly under the hood of a pretty nice Corvette. Mike gives it a glance but doesn’t see anything immediately wrong.

“Could use an oil change,” he offers. Texas nods, distractedly, and starts moving without really seeming to notice. Mike just stands there and props the hood up, watching Texas work.

“This is some Terminator shit, Mike,” Texas finally says. “Like, classic… Terminator shit. Right? I mean, guys coming back in time, the future being all messed up. Killer robots.”

“Yeah, pretty much.”

“That guy’s eyes glowed! Did you notice that? He had laser eyes!”

“Yeah.”

Texas finishes up the oil change and lets Mike put the hood down, then goes and sits on it. Mike goes and gets a clean rag before either of them can smudge up the finish, and Texas starts wiping his hands down finger by finger, still quiet and abstracted.

Finally he bursts out with, “Julie’s a _nice_ girl, she’s _fun!”_ He balls up the rag and throws it on the ground. “How’s she go and make something so bad a guy comes back like twenty zillion years just to stop her?” He looks plaintively at Mike, his hands working uselessly on his knees, “...Should _we_ stop her?”

Mike shakes his head. “No way. I think she knows what she’s doing,” he says, like he hasn’t been waiting for a gun to go off this whole time.

“...He said my _name_ ,” Texas says softly. He shakes his head. “That’s— yknow, that’s heavy, he knew my _name_.”

“You’re important,” Mike says. He elbows Tex, trying for a smile. “C’mon, aren’t you always telling me what a hot shot big time badass you are? You go down in the history books, dude.”

Texas just shakes his head again, still grim. “Yeah, as part of that Kane Company mess. I don’t like that.”

Something buzzes, and they both jump.  The buzz quickly scales up into an obnoxious midi of _Eye Of The Tiger_ and Texas fumbles in his pocket, pulls out his ridiculous vintage brick of a flip phone and snaps it open.

“Big Texas, what can I do ya for,” he asks. Then, “Huh? Yeah. Uh, yeah, yeah— no, it’s cool. How big? What? No, that’s fine, that’s nothin’, bring it all on over. Y’got the address? Yeah, that’s it. C’mon by, we’re all— yeah, Mike’s here too, ‘n his cyber pal, it’s a whole party. No, it’s— my man, tonight has been so fucking weird. Texas gets you. C’mon over.”

He flips his phone closed and sighs, leaning forward over his knees, big arms bunching up as he wraps them around his chest. “Friend of yours,” he says. “Gordon something. Says y’didn’t kill all the robots and he can bring the last one over for you. ‘Bout the size of a computer tower, he says.”

“Cool,” Mike says, remembering the floating canister bots that Chuck shot down one after another. _Running on empty_ , he said. Those robots sort of saved his life, tonight. That’s so weird.

“This is _so_ weird,” Texas says.

“It’s so weird,” Mike agrees. “I don’t think we watched enough sci fi for this, buddy.”

“You’re tellin’ me!” Texas says. “Man, why couldn’t it be like— kung fu stuff, I’m _good_ at kung fu stuff! We haveta save a dojo or something from the evil sifu Blood Moon Fu Young, I’m your dude! Not— not _Doctor Who_. Ugh.”

“Doctor Who is British,” Mike points out. “This is Detroit. So at least we’re okay on that.”

“Yeah, if an English dude came to Detroit he’d probably, like, die.” Texas looks a little more cheerful at this thought. “At least we got some home-grown weirdness goin’ on!”

“If I had to pick a city that would last two hundred years and some kind of apocalypse, I dunno if I’d pick Detroit,” Mike says. Then he thinks about it. “Then again...”

“I wonder what kind of apocalypse,” Texas says. “You seen those ones about like, 2012, right, where it was supposed to be all kinds of crazy weather? I loved those! With the ice storms ‘n tsunamis and big wolves— Texas would totally win against wolf tsunamis.”

“Wolfnados,” Mike says. “Wolf...namis.”

“Wol _fire-storms!_ ” Texas enthuses. “Like maybe there’s wildfires and the wolves get caught in them! It’s a tornado _and_ it’s on fire _and_ there’s wolves in it!”

“Crispy fried barbeque wolves,” Mike says.

“Bzzt, no, wrong, they can still bite you, and it’s awesome.”

“Uh...” a new voice chimes in. “Hey? Hi?”

Mike and Texas sit up, watching the tall, gangly black kid slouch through the front door, a big white box under his arm.

“Hey, dude,” Mike says. “Dutch, right? That was fast.”

“You got a teleporter or somethin’?” Texas asks interestedly.

“Wh—haha, no, uh, I was just across the street when I called.” Dutch ruffles the back of his afro, embarrassed. “I almost came in before I thought I should, y’know, maybe ask if it was okay.”

“It’s cool,” Mike says firmly. “It’s fine. I mean, what else were you gonna do, get the Men in Black on the case?”

“Man, I wish,” Dutch says. “How’re you holding up? How’s your— your— uh, friend?”

“He’s gettin’ interrogated,” Texas says, way too cheerfully. “Julie’s on it. She’s a tough cookie.”

Dutch looks kind of queasy, which makes Mike like him a lot more.

“Oh,” he says weakly. “Okay. Interrogation. Sure, that’s a thing that happens to people, great.”

“It’s not like that,” Mike says. “We didn’t— we aren’t— it’s just some stuff Julie wanted to ask him, like, in private. We’re not setting up like, Guantanamo or anything.”

“Roswell,” Texas says brightly. “It’d be Roswell, dude.”

“Whatever,” Mike says. “Chuck’s a real person, _dude_. We’re not gonna be dicks about this, okay?”

“Psh,” Texas says, shrugging. “Yeah, yeah, I getcha. Hands off the space boyfriend.”

“He’s not my—” Mike’s voice cracks and he coughs, feeling his ears heat up. “ _Tex_ , jeez, c’mon!”

Dutch laughs along with Texas, though, looking a little less frazzled. So that’s something, at least.

“So what’s in the box?” Texas says. “You got more robots? Julie got a robot. I want a robot.”

“You’re welcome to this one,” Dutch says, and lets go of the box. “I mean, if you can get it to stop followin’ me around.”

The box floats. It rotates slowly in the air, revealing the now-familiar K-sign branding, a single flickering light on the front, like a camera eye or on-switch or something, and a back end that’s absolutely blown to shit, sort of melted and shredded and shattered all at once. Mike is suddenly, _profoundly_ glad that Chuck used up all his firepower on robots. If _that’s_ how blown up shit gets when he’s got some juice left, then Mike could be getting prepped for a closed casket funeral right about now.

“How’s it still floating?” Texas wonders, and reaches a hand out. He waves it in front of the little light, and grins when the thing revolves slowly around to follow the gesture, like a clumsy rectangular balloon.

“Beats me,” Dutch says. “It’s not very good at it anymore, though. Poor little guy was getting blown around by the wind when I came out and got him.”

“You went out to go get... the killer robots...?” Mike asks.

“Well, they were all pretty much dead,” Dutch says. “Except this one, and it’s definitely not firin’ on all cylinders right now. I thought maybe I shouldn’t leave a bunch of impossibly advanced technology scattered all over the street, y’know? Like maybe that’s not great for our timeline, or dimension, or, or reality, or whatever the heck is getting screwed up because _nothing on Earth should work like this right now!_ I got them in my mom’s car, so if your space boyfriend knows how to get rid of ‘em without turning us all into paradoxes, or lettin’ my parents know I’m gettin’ mixed up with some seriously heavy stuff, that’d be awesome.”

“He’s not my boyfriend!” Mike protests.

“Yeah, that was the real important part of what Gordon just said,” Texas says, amused.

“Well, he isn’t!”  

“Who isn’t?” Julie asks, and Mike jolts all the way to his feet because Chuck’s gotta be with her— and he is, yep. She’s smiling wryly at them and Chuck’s limping unsteadily behind her, looking stressed and tired but not actually terrified, which, for him, seems actually pretty good. When he catches Mike looking, he gives him a sweet, wry smile, and a goofy little wave.

“ _Get ‘im,”_ Texas stage-whispers, and elbows him.  

Mike elbows him back a lot more viciously, hoping he’s not showing a visible amount of blush.

“No one, Jules,” Mike says, very firmly. “I am totally single, guys, okay, end subject.”

“Well, I’m glad we all sat around doing our hair and chatting about hot dates while I was interrogating Mike’s space friend who’s a boy,” Julie says.

“Julie!” Mike protests.

“Anyway, we’re not gonna found the Kane Company,” she plows on, with ruthless good cheer. “We’re gonna stop World War Three.”

“World war excuse me?” Texas asks.

“Yeah, uh, hi,” Dutch raises his hand, “I’m new, who’s doing _what_?”

“Oh, hey, new guy,” Julie says. “Mike, why is there a new guy?”

“This is Dutch,” Mike says. “He’s cool. He cleaned up a bunch of the dead robots for us.”

“Awesome, great, thanks.” Julie turns to Dutch. “Did these two lunkheads bring you up to speed on the time travel stuff?”

“Not even a little,” Dutch says. “I just know there’s like a Matrix Reloaded amount of robots all over the place all of a sudden, but, hey, time travel, sure. And Mike’s boyf—”

“His name is Chuck!” Mike says loudly.

“Mike’s Chuckfriend.”

“ _Thank_ you.”

“Is from the future.”

“Yep,” Julie says. “Okay cool, you’re up to speed.”

“That was fast,” Dutch says.

“That’s what she said,” Julie says, a split second before Texas crows, _“That’s what—_ aw!”

Chuck is now looking stressed, tired, and suspicious, like he knows he’s been made fun of but can’t quite figure out how or for what. It’s an unfairly cute look on him. Mike is starting to feel like a lot of things are unfair right now.

“Let’s go back to the part with World War Three,” Mike says. “Jules, you wanna explain your logic here or what?”

“Well okay, so, according to Chuck,” Julie starts, “our resident expert on the future with a certification in actually having come from there, me and Mike got married and founded Kane Company with a bunch of our ex- and post-military friends, intending to reunify Detroit after World War Three led to the dissolution of the United States back into basically a whole bunch of warring microterritories. Kind of like Japan’s warring states period, but across an entire continent full of spare post-apocalyptic ammo.”

“So less Matrix and more Mad Max,” Dutch says thoughtfully.

“Yep,” Julie says, giving him double finger guns.

“ _Nice_ ,” Texas says.

“Well, no,” Julie says. “Actually really horrifying and sad and not a good century to have to deal with like at all. So we’re just gonna head the war off in the first place! No war, no Kane Co, no problems.”

“...And Chuck is cool with this?” Mike asks.  

Chuck looks up from his feet and gives a big, helpless shrug. “Well I mean like, it’s _super_ crazy, but she’s Julie Kane. If she says she’s gonna stop the apocalypse, I just feel sorry for the apocalypse.”

Julie beams at him.  

“I like this guy,” she says happily. “I’m gonna keep this guy.”

Chuck smiles back, a tired, nervous expression that’s more than half grimace.

“Actually,” Mike blurts out. “I think— I don’t think we should just decide something like that.”

Julie frowns. “Like what?”

“Keeping him.”

Chuck jerks his head up, shoulders rising. “But,” he says thinly, and seems to stall out there, dismay and raw fear on his face. “I— I can— I’m—good for it?”

Mike can’t help himself: he’s at Chuck’s side in three strides, hands on his tense, bony shoulders. “How long have you been fighting?” he asks, peering up into his strained, anxious face. “You’re our age, and how many times have you been _tortured_ , dude? When did you escape from the, the Brain Factory?”

“Brain farms,” Chuck says. “They— that was just what we called them, it was— just a regular tech department, dude—”

“Where you had to _escape_ ,” Mike says. “C’mon. Chuck. You’re— it’s the 21st century, you’re here to stay, you can— we can get you a fake ID, some starter cash, and turn you loose. You could be free.”

Chuck takes a sharp breath in. His face is very pale, behind his hair. His eyes are very bright.

“But... the war...” he says thinly.

“Yeah, don’t we need to know his future secrets ‘n junk?” Texas asks.

“He can _write them down_ for us,” Mike growls. He squeezes Chuck’s shoulders. “We’ll spend a day asking him everything we can think of, while the IDs and stuff get made. C’mon, guys, he’s not a— not a _tool_ , not a _database_ , he’s a _person!_  Just because he risked his life to get to us doesn’t mean we get to _own_ him!”

“Huh,” Dutch says. “Yeah, dude. Right on.”

Julie’s nodding. “That’s fair,” she says. “I can’t say I don’t want to keep him around, but I don’t want— I wouldn’t— we’re keeping Kane Co from happening, not starting it up early. No brain farms. No child soldiers.”

Mike nods back at her, relieved. “Thanks, Jules.”

Chuck is biting his lower lip, now. “I’m good for it though,” he mumbles. “I could help you guys. Honest.”

“I know,” Mike says. “You’re awesome, dude, and I’d love to have you onboard with all this. But not because you don’t have any other options. If you wanna live the rest of your life out in the suburbs, raising chickens or— or whatever! Then you totally deserve it.”

Chuck just _looks_ at him, for a long moment, then looks away, taking a deep, shuddering breath. “No one ever—” his voice cracks. “No one ever just _gave_ ... just _said_ I could _..._ leave.”

“Well we are,” Julie says firmly. She touches his arm, gently, and just looks more determined when he flinches. “I’m sorry if I made you feel like you couldn’t say no to me. I want you to say yes, but you can’t if you don’t know that you can say no.”

“Yes,” Chuck says, and gives a wet little laugh. “If you guys want me you can have me, I wanna help, you’re a bunch of freakin’ _legends_ , of course I want in on this. But. It means a lot to me, that, that you’d cut me loose. It’s... it’s a lot.”

Mike pulls him in for a hug, his throat tight. “I’m glad,” he says. Chuck laughs again, right against his shoulder, and it feels great, amazing, probably a little _too_ nice, but _fuck it_. Chuck’s gonna stay, because he actually _wants_ to, not just because he’s desperate or scared or a prisoner _,_ and they’re all gonna save the world.  

“Am I a legend?” Dutch asks Texas curiously. Texas makes an _I dunno_ noise. Chuck shifts in Mike’s arms, curiously, peering around him at the new guy.

“I dunno, but probably,” Chuck says. “There’s some weird kind of destiny stuff happening, like, with Mr Kim—”

“Mister _what_ ,” Texas demands.

“Uh,” Chuck says. Mike can feel him go tense up against him, and belatedly lets go of the guy, steps back. He can’t quite make himself let go entirely, though, and keeps his hand reassuringly on Chuck’s thin back, patting him.

“It’s just Texas,” Texas says, crossing his arms. “I mean not _just,_ I mean like, only. Mr Kim is like, me in fifty years when I run a corner grocery store and smell like dried mushrooms and complain about kids these days playin’ Pokemon. Yuck.”

“And that’s before or after the apocalypse?” Dutch asks, amused.

“Probably durin’,” Texas says. “I mean, kids’d play Pokemon anywhere, right?”

“Well, I would,” Dutch says. “You gotta get those shinies when you can.”

“Do you know Whiptail?” Chuck cuts in, and winces back against Mike when the two men glance at him. But his eyes are intent on Dutch’s tattooed arms, the blue light flickering— this close, Mike can see rings around his pupil flexing and contracting, like a camera lens or a loading wheel or something.

“I— yeah, I mean— do I _know_ him?” Dutch seems incredulous, now, looking from Chuck’s face to his own arms. “Like— he’s a— he’s a dude, then? A guy?”

“Maybe,” Chuck says. “I— I thought— I mean, he was assumed to be the first self-realized neuralnet actualization, he laid the foundation for— like, pretty much everything to do with hardlight technology, but Mike says you don’t even have intercoms yet but you’ve _heard_ of him, right, so— are you involved in the project?”

“I’ve been using Whiptail as my tag, my— uh, my handle, my street art name,” Dutch says. “I just started using it this year. Cuz like, uh, I’m a scorpio, I draw this little scorpion character— I dunno, I just thought it was cool.”

“....Whiptail is human,” Chuck says. His face has gone blank with shock. “Whiptail is— he’s _human!? YOU’RE Whiptail?”_

Dutch jumps a little at the intensity, and then again when Chuck is right up close, taking his arm with wide-eyed reverence, studying the half-mechanical scorpion up close like it’s some kind of holy document.

“Yeah, I dunno!” Dutch says, nervous now. “Maybe! I— who is he, what’s he _do_ , am I in trouble?”

“You’re apparently the most brilliant mind of the twenty first century,” Chuck breathes. “Holy crap. Whiptail’s _human_. Thurman owes me twenty credits and an apology, _upper limit on organic ingenuity_ my butt!”

“Wow,” Dutch says. “Dang. Okay.” He looks a lot like how Mike felt earlier, totally floored. _Some weird kind of destiny stuff_. It’s one thing to joke about the Matrix and the Terminator and all, but it’s another thing to feel the future settle in on your shoulders, to have this laser-eyed refugee stare at you like you’re superhuman. They’re legends, all the guys in this room standing around a sleep-deprived Engineering  & CompSci student with her hair falling out of her bun. An actual fucking _legend_ is happening to them.  

“What we told Chuck applies to all of you,” Julie says. When they look over she’s got her arms crossed, a troubled expression on her pale, tired face. “Just because you guys were with me on all this in some other time and place no one got a choice, doesn’t mean you’re under any kind of contract here and now. You want out, you get out.”

“I’m in,” Texas says immediately. “Are you _kidding_ ? This is _so cool_.”

“Yeah, I... I kinda get the sense that we’re where we need to be right now,” Dutch says.

“You know I’ve got your back, Jules,” Mike says. “One question, though.”

“Shoot,” she says seriously.

“You want a spring or autumn wedding?” Mike grins. “Spring’s sooner but you _know_ my coloration’s better for warm tones.” She bursts out laughing, at that, and comes forward to punch him hard in the arm. He grabs her in a half-hug, half-nelson, and holds her while she shakes and giggles.

Chuck is smiling, and he’s just about to– say something, maybe, when his face goes slack and his eyes light up like spotlights, burning through his bangs. Mike thinks he’s about to pass out— Dutch, too, he grabs for the guy when he staggers— but Texas is turning and looking after where Chuck’s staring. There’s a cold draft and the front door didn’t make a noise but there’s a _presence_.

“ _Kane_ ,” Chuck breathes.

There’s a thing by the front door, drifting closer in weird, unnatural lurches and swirls, like a plastic bag caught by traffic. It’s only vaguely humanoid, white and red and a creepy wrong-looking blue, and it keeps endlessly folding in on itself. There’s a suggestion of fingers, around the edges, things that might be organs in the middle, or engines.

“What the fuck,” Dutch says, high and panicky. “What the _fuck,_ man, what _is_ that!?”

“Gun,” Texas is saying, “Julie, c’mon, get your gun out, girl, c’mon—”

“He shouldn’t _be_ here,” Chuck says, “this isn’t right, I’ve got the only time machine, this isn’t _right_.”

“ _You forgot about the prototype_ , _you disgusting little traitor,_ ” the thing says, with too many voices. Wet tubes like throats, or wires, or worms, squirm around its core. “ _You forgot that we would KNOW HOW TO MAKE ANOTHER_.”

It’s close enough now that there’s almost a face, in the mess of folding, interlocking bits and pieces. Dozens of teeth, too many eyes, dark and rolling, the pupils expanding out of existence.

“I corrupted all the research,” Chuck says. His voice is trembling. “The trials, the build logs, all of it—”

“ _Yes_ ,” the thing says. There’s a gruesome suggestion of a shrug to its collection of parts. “ _This is not an ideal manifestation_. _But it suits us well enough and when we have the true machine the Kane Company will last for all of eternity._ ”

“No,” Julie says. The thing— the Kane— is an unfathomable rolling boil, but still it somehow manages to turn and look at her. She stands up straight in front of it, looking very small, but deadly serious.

 _“No?”_ it says. “ _But you are Kane. You are the first, you are our founder._ ”

“No,” she says again. “I won’t be.”

The thing... screams. “ _We are your future! We are inevitable!”_

“Which part of this thing is the time machine?” Julie asks Chuck. Fingertips are starting to reach her, now, and sharp glancing sparks of teeth and nails, pulling at her clothes, her hair.

“Uh, ’s not— it’s not vis’ble fr’m... now,” Chuck says. He’s swaying in place, staring into the center of the swarm of pieces. His eyes are so bright they have to be hurting him, and his skin is so pale he’s almost literally white. Sweat runs down the side of his ashen jaw, and the parts of his slingshot are coalescing around his arm a lot like the Kane-creature is manifesting itself on the floor, in a whirl of parts that come in and out of nowhere. When they finally finish drawing into a coherent piece of machinery he makes a low, wavering groan of pain, and his eyes roll back.

Mike grabs him before he can hit the floor, drags his free arm up over his shoulder. He’s _heavy_ , and his head knocks painfully against Mike’s own.

“Buddy, come on,” Mike says frantically, “C’mon, stay with us!”

The arm with the slingshot is dangling limply, and Chuck only moans again. Dutch crowds Mike’s other side, frantically trying to get hold of the device, or the holograms, but his hands pass right through them. The metal somehow just isn’t _there,_ for them, it's just a projected image in the air neither of them can touch.

The Kane-thing is there, though, solid and real. The swirling wind is rising, carrying a disgustingly wet, meaty smell, and Julie has to take a step backwards as a glancing shard of bone or metal or _something_ cuts open her cheek.

Texas is apparently at the end of his tolerance for Julie getting devoured by a fourth-dimensional exploded diagram of nightmare fuel, because he’s got a gun out and yells “Julie, get _down!_ ”

Julie dodges to the side and Texas shoots at the thing, the shots ringing out incredibly loud. The thing screams and recoils, scudding back across the floor, and now blood is part of the mix, glittering weightless red blobs whirling around orbiting the center mass, leaving spyrograph patterns along the cement wherever they touch down.

“ _Julie_ ,” the thing croons. “ _Julie, please, my ancestor my daughter sweetheart my lady JULIE, this is your destiny, come here, come HERE!_ ”

“Okay,” Julie says grimly. “Okay.” She draws her own gun and strides after the thing. Texas gives a strangled yell and lunges for her, but he's too late, and Mike’s weighed down by Chuck, who’s started to have some kind of terrifying absent seizure.

Julie walks right into the center of the thing and it contracts, for a moment, into something almost perfectly human. Mike’s heart freezes in his chest, because that’s— he knows who—

“Dad?” Julie asks, voice small with shock.

“ _Julie_ ,” Kane says, Police Captain Kapulsky says, Julie’s father and descendent somehow all at once— he pulls her carefully into his arms. Then the moment shatters and so does his form, and Julie’s, too— Mike _screams_ , a wordlessly frantic denial, because there’s only a gruesome whirlwind of bone and blood and meat left, and it’s devolving, spinning out into a wider, attenuated orbit.  

Chuck gives a stuttering, sobbing gasp, and knocks his head into Mike’s again.

“Help,” he moans. “Chilton _, sir, help_ , my arm— _can’t—_ ”

Mike grabs for his slack arm, pointing the slingshot towards what’s left of the whirlwind. Chuck draws back the firing mechanisms with his other hand, shaking all over, straining for each breath. It’s like he’s fueling the thing with the last little spark of his soul, now, like it’s killing him, and Mike wants to say _no don’t please you don’t have to do this,_ but he does. He really, _really_ does.

Chuck releases the firing pad, and a bright green star launches itself across the garage, to pierce through the the last bit of the whirlwind dead center. There’s something very much like an explosion, but backwards: not an implosion, but weirder and way worse. It makes Mike’s eardrums pop and his whole brain hiccup, and there aren’t any words to describe what happens to the whirlwind itself.

He doesn’t exactly drop Chuck, but only because he falls over first and Chuck lands on top of him. Dutch hits the ground right beside him, Texas somewhere behind them. Then bullets start falling out of the air, one after another, dropped from nowhere, as shining and perfect as the first moment they were made.

After the last one falls, there’s a long, terrible pause.

“Julie,” Mike says helplessly. “Julie, _no_.”

Julie doesn’t come back. Mike feels something building in his chest like a sob, or a scream.

But then Jacob’s office opens. Mike had no idea Jacob was even  _here_ tonight— would have sworn that no one could have slept through everything that just happened, no matter how high they liked to get in the evenings— only there’s light spilling out of the room, and hope rises up to choke him.

“Julie,” he calls out.

“She’s here, I got her,” Jacob says, stepping out of the office. He looks the same as ever, a wiry old punk with too much hair and kind eyes, and he’s got one thin arm around Julie’s shoulders.

Julie’s different, though. She's wearing a sleek, spotless white bodysuit, like something out of 60’s sci-fi, all vacuum-sealed white latex, with big white fetishy boots. She’s had seriously dramatic amounts of eyeliner and blood-red lipstick applied to her pale face and she’s got bangs, now, cut in a crisp line over her eyebrows, everything about her is _crisp_ now. Her eyes have thin gold bands around the pupil, glowing traffic-light yellow against the darkness of her long, thick, hopefully-fake lashes.

“ _Mike_ ,” she says, like she can’t believe it’s him.

“Jules, oh my god,” Mike says, and it comes out with a laugh that’s definitely mostly crying and then they’re running across the floor, grabbing for each other. She’s grown like an inch taller, even discounting the boots, and her hair is _perfectly_ brushed, grown out longer than he’s ever seen it. He kisses her face over and over again, her forehead and nose and painted eyelids, holding her as tightly as he can, his best friend.

“What happened, what _happened_ ?” he demands. 

“I fixed Chuck's timeline and I’m back, I’m back now, it’s done, we’re safe, we’re _free_ ,” she tells him, kissing him back, his jaw and cheeks. " _Oh_ , I missed you so much!”

“How long were you— how long _was_ it for you—”

“Too long,” she says. “Way too long but it’s over now, it’s finished, I’m here. God, _Mike_ , you’re here, you’re really here!”

“I’m here, we’re both here,” Mike affirms.  

“Any of y’all wanna clue the old guy in?” Jacob asks. “Cuz either I’ve had some _really_ bad hash or the hip new thing with kids today is teleportation.”

“Time travel,” Julie says. “I fixed the future and now we have to fix the past.”

Jacob squints at her thoughtfully. “Sounds about right for time travel,” he says. “Need any help?”

Julie laughs, bright but with a ragged, painful edge. “ _Oh_ yes,” she says. “This is gonna— there’s gonna be _a lot_. Yeah. But not tonight. It doesn’t have to all be right tonight, right now. We’ve got a little while.”

Mike pulls her into another tight hug, resting his cheek on her hair. She takes a series of deep, shaky breaths, her small hands fisting in his shirt, then pulls back abruptly.

 _“Claire_ ,” she breathes. “Claire’s here! Claire’s— I gotta go. Now. I gotta go now and see her.”

“If you don’t kiss her I’m gonna be _so disappointed_ in you,” Mike says.

“Shut up, I’m gonna, I saved the world and I’m gonna kiss her. Oh my god.” Julie runs her glossy nails through her perfect hair, paces a few steps away, then dives back in for another hug.

 _“Mike oh my god I missed you so much!_ ”

“Me too,” Mike says. “But go smooch your girlfriend.”

“I’m gonna!” This time when she pulls back, she’s swiped Mike’s keys out of his pocket.

“Hey,” Mike says. “Don’t— not— not with _my_ car!”

“I’m gonna,” Julie repeats. “See you tomorrow!”

“Where am I— hey! Jules!”

“Get an Uber! They still have those now!”

“Uber has awful business practices—” Mike tries to grab his keys back and finds himself thrown, abruptly, over Julie’s hip. He hits the ground rolling, comes up unhurt but deeply startled. “ _Jules!”_

“Sorry, sorry! I know kung fu now! Bye!” Julie gives a last wave and disappears out the door. Mike sinks back down to sit on the ground, kind of stunned by... everything.

“Anyone _else_ wanna do anything crazy?” he asks plaintively.

“I’d prefer if y’all didn’t,” Jacob says.

“I’m good,” Dutch says.

“Yeah, same,” Texas agrees. “Mike, you and Blondie over there can like, crash out at my place. I don’t think I’m sleepin’ for awhile. Stretch, you need a nap or wanna come with? I’m gonna go hit the gym and then a bar and then probably the gym again. Or maybe the other way around.”

“I’m— uh, I’m gonna go home. My mom’s gonna be freakin’ out around now, I think. Can I leave the robots here?”

“Oh, yeah. We can put ‘em in a locker.”

Mike goes to lever himself up from the floor, so he can help with that, but Texas just waves him off.

“I told you, lil man, go crash,” he says kindly. “Texas knows when a dude’s runnin’ on empty.”

Mike nods, goes to gather Chuck up. The guy is still lying limp on the floor, shivering intermittently, but he moans a little and stirs when Mike gently shakes his shoulder.

“Hey,” he says.

“...Hey,” Chuck says. His eyes are a deep, dull blue when he slits them open, not burnt-out but definitely some kind of powered-down.

“Think you can get up? There’s a futon upstairs,” Mike tells him.

Chuck groans, low and pretty, and shoves himself up on his arms. “‘Kay,” he mumbles, “‘kay, I c’n.... Yeah...” He sways dangerously, almost collapsing again. Mike catches him, braces himself, levers the guy to his feet mostly on main strength. He’s not quite limp but pressed this close, Mike can feel the exhausted tremble in his legs, the heavy sag of his spine, the sweat beading on his jaw when his head lolls limply against Mike’s.

“Just a little further, buddy, and you can rest,” Mike coaxes him, one step and then the next, staggering a little. “Just a bit more, c’mon, you can do it... ”

It feels like it takes forever to get upstairs, through the door that cuts the little studio apartment Texas rents off from the rest of the garage. Mike can’t help taking a deep breath once they’re in, though, the scent of workout equipment and thrift store furniture and probably illegal amounts of sriracha all hitting him right in the hindbrain, telling him he’s _safe_. Nothing bad can happen in Texas’s space, the dude just wouldn’t allow it.

He tows Chuck over to the unmade futon mattress in the corner, kicks the blankets aside and lays him down. Chuck mumbles something appreciative and almost totally incoherent, and goes totally limp, eyes closing a final time.

Mike looks at him for probably way too long, then goes and takes the guy’s shoes off for him, sets them neatly by the head of the bed. The soles are definitely cut out of tires, which is kind of cool, actually. Then Mike takes off his own boots, slings his jacket over the back of a chair, and finds himself drifting back to the futon instead of lying down on Texas’s ratty old couch.

He wants... it’s probably creepy, it’s probably _really_ creepy and crossing _a lot_ of lines, but he wants more than anything to just not be alone right now, he wants to lie down with Chuck and put his arm over those stark, bruised-up ribs and hold him close and smell his hair and feel his warmth and maybe get his mouth on the sharp, compelling angle of his jaw.

Instead he lies down carefully at just the edge of the futon, hands to himself. This is a decent compromise, probably. He hopes. He just can’t be alone right now, not after everything that happened, he _needs—_ he reaches a hand out before he can stop himself, touches the very tips of his fingers against the back of one of Chuck’s hands. Chuck twitches, and Mike freezes, but the guy doesn’t move, so neither does Mike. Chuck settles back down with a long sigh that Mike can feel ruffle his hair, and Mike’s eyes are already closing, and it’s easy, after that, to sleep.


End file.
